During an Asian forum last week American and Chinese defense ministers met to discuss their strategic and security problems. And with no progress on any of the issues, they decided to continue to talk and establish contacts between their field commanders to prevent “misunderstandings” and "miscalculations” that could lead to war in the South China Sea.

Both officials emphasized that this was a follow up on the decisions of American and Chinese presidents to keep the lines of communication open “at all levels of government” while they met at the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) summit in San Francisco, CA, in November 2023.

It is important to note that the San Francisco summit was also a follow up to the presidents’ substantive discussions in Bali, Indonesia, in November 2022 during the G20 meeting.

That unending American Chinese talkfest is a sign of a total impasse on two issues – Taiwan and China’s maritime borders. Both problems are considered by Beijing as non-negotiable matters of its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Indeed, for China, Taiwan is its province whose governance is an internal matter.

“Strategic ambiguities” don’t fool anyone

That, however, is unacceptable to Washington. For the U.S., Taiwan is a self-governed democratic entity established in 1949, and its status cannot be changed by force or coercion.

The U.S.-Taiwan relations are set out in three documents negotiated with China in 1972, 1979 and 1982. There is also the Taiwan Relations Act passed by Congress in 1979, and Reagan administration’s “Six Assurances” to Taiwan in 1982.

According to those documents, the U.S. is acknowledging the “one China” principle, while remaining committed to the Taiwan Relations Act that “the United States shall provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character and shall maintain the capacity of the United States to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or social or economic system, of the people of Taiwan.”

During the meeting in Indonesia, President Joe Biden assured China’s President Xi Jinping that the United States does not support "Taiwan’s independence," "two Chinas" or "one China, one Taiwan."

Biden also told Xi that the U.S. does not want conflict with China or to contain China.

Without going into a more detailed discussion, it is clear that the U.S. position on Taiwan is worlds apart from Beijing’s view that Taiwan -- as a province of China – is its internal matter allowing no foreign interference of any kind.

The problem of China’s contested maritime borders is an equally serious disagreement.

Modus vivendi among nuclear adversaries

The U.S. considers that China “asserts unlawful maritime claims,” and invites Beijing to “conform its maritime claims to international law and to cease its unlawful and coercive activities in the South China Sea.”

China rejects that view and condemns the U.S. interference as an attempt to disrupt bilateral consultations of parties with overlapping maritime border claims. Beijing is also accusing Washington that it wants to obstruct the conclusion of a China-ASEAN (ten Southeast Asian countries) Code of Conduct that would “achieve a peaceful, friendly, and harmonious environment in the South China Sea.”

This discussion shows that none of the key political, economic and strategic problems have changed since the opening of U.S.-China relations in the early 1970s.

Contrary to some naïve and ill-informed thinking, trade and investments have not narrowed the unbridgeable gap between American and Chinese political, economic and social systems. Security problems, in particular, have become more acute because China’s economic and military development increased its regional and global power projections.

China, apparently, seems ready to face unsettled U.S.-China relations. Beijing never lost sight of its objectives to rebuild the economy and develop defense capabilities to guarantee its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

With the world’s second largest economy and a credible nuclear deterrent, China is now advocating a multipolar world, based on U.N. charter provisions for peaceful coexistence and non-interference in internal matters of sovereign states. Beijing is also diversifying the flows of its global commerce and finance to avoid trade problems with the U.S. and the E.U.

The U.S., for its part, needs a strong, steady and balanced economy with a potential and noninflationary growth of 3% -- a large upgrade from the current 2%. That implies a significant and sustainable increase in labor force and productivity growth. Public finances and foreign trade must also be reset on a sound footing as it befits a key currency country.

With respect to China, Washington has to realize that it has placed its China dealings on a permanent collision course in an adversarial framework of “strategic competition.”

That is an unstable and unproductive relationship. The U.S. must find a viable modus vivendi with potential nuclear armed adversaries.